Woman dealing with phony company scammed out of thousands of dollars

A woman reported to police May 29 she believed she had been the victim of a scam in which she had paid several thousand dollars to protect her computer. It turned out she was dealing with a phony company when she thought she was dealing with Mac Tech Support.

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The sequence of events started May 28, 2017, when she was told the company had installed a protection package on her computer and she was being charged $299.99. She was advised to call the company back periodically so they could scan her computer for her, and she complied.

She called in February and a person identified as “James” told her he had run a scan which revealed millions of corrupted files. She then purchased a multi-year package for $329.99.

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She called again May 22 to the number she had been given for “Your Computer Pros” and again talked to “James” who told her he had run an optimization check and found thousands of infected bits of data. He recommended a new protection plan at a cost of $7,700.

She agreed but was told the company could not accept more than $1,000 on any one credit card, so she charged that amount on each of three cards and set up a PayPal account to pay the rest. When he demanded another $375, she closed the PayPal account, realizing it was a scam.

She later contacted Mac Tech Support and was told they had never heard of YCP and it is not connected to them. She was in the process of filing disputes with the credit card companies and was filing a police report to help with that.

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